The London Marathon-How sleep is one of the Variables of Victory

On Sunday over 40,000 people will run the London Marathon and it will be the culmination of weeks and weeks of gruelling training. Sleep is often forgot about when it comes to training for such a challenging event, as most of the athletes will be semi pro and will have been fitting training in around work and family life.

This means that as they try to fit in more and more training the space they are giving to sleep gets less and less, the quality of their sleep diminishes and the benefit they get from their training reduces, their ability to stick to their nutrition plan is inhibited and their chances of getting injured increases. That is why it was great that New Balance asked me to contribute to their Variables of Victory programme, where they have asked health experts to give runners in the London Marathon some easy to apply tips and techniques to improving their training before the event.

If you are a competitor in the marathon and are worrying about your sleep on Saturday night my advice would be do not worry. When working with elite athletes I accept they might not sleep great the night before the event, but they always put in a high-level performance. If you are staying in a hotel the night before the event, take your own pillow, have a bath or shower 30 minutes before you want to go to sleep. Most importantly do not go to bed early and only go to bed when you are tired!

For anyone competing in the London Marathon, or any sporting event over the summer, check out my advice on the New Balance website here